Americans and Canadians spent over $53 billion on Marijuana in 2016

People in North America spent an estimated $53.3 billion on legal, medical, and illicit marijuana in 2016, according to a new report from Arcview Market Research released this week.

In its first of its kind research, the report finds that legal regulated marijuana sales in North America totaled $6.9 billion in 2016, a 34 percent increase from 2015. Legal sales are projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 26 percent, from $6.9 billion in 2016 to an estimated $21.6 billion by 2021.

Illegal marijuana sales totaled approximately $46.4 billion, which constituted 87% of all sales, down from 90% in 2015. Reeking of missed opportunity and a massive loss of potential tax revenue, the report noted 87% of all marijuana sales across North America were serviced by the black market.

“The enormous amount of existing, if illicit, consumer spending sets marijuana apart from most other major consumer-market investment opportunities throughout history,” said Troy Dayton, CEO of Arcview Market Research. “In contrast to comparable markets with fast growth from zero to tens of billions in recent decades such as organic foods, home video, mobile, or the internet, the cannabis industry doesn’t need to create demand for a new product or innovation.”

The report also found that while all categories of legal marijuana products enjoyed healthy growth, the growth of alternative methods of consumption outpaced that of traditional flower sales, jumping, for instance, from 30 percent of total legal sales in the first quarter of 2014 to 45 percent in the third quarter of 2016 in Colorado, where marijuana has been fully legal since 2012.

Notably, seven US states legalized marijuana either for medical use or recreational propose on Election Day in 2016.